August fischer



' (No Model.)

- A. FISCHER. v

SAFETY APPARATUS FOR STREET CARS.

No. 540,830. Patented June 11, 1895.

UNITED STATES A PATENT QFFICE.

AUGUST FISCHER, OF CHICAGO, 'ILLIBOIS, ASSIGNOR OFONEHALF TO JOHANN G. EGGERS, OF SAME PLACE.

SAFETY APPARATUS FOR STREET-CARS.

"$PECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 510,830, dated June 11, 18$ 5. v

Application filed February 26, l895. Serial No. 539,772". (No model.) i

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, AUGUST FIsCHER,a citi-- zen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented anew-and useful Improvement in Safety Apparatus for Street-Cars, of which the following is a specification.

Where the road-bed of astreet-carlinecontains inclined sections, and particularly in tunnels, accidents occur in the ascent and'descent of a car or train of cars by its running down the incline and crashing into another car or train ahead ofbr behind it, owing to the loss of control by the gripman or motorman over the brakes by reason of disarrangement or imperfection of the brake-mechanism.

The object of my invention is to providea safety apparatus on the car adapted to be engaged, at the will of the brakeman, with a toothed supplemental track on the inclinedsection of a street-car road-bed to hold the car, when desired, against moving down the incline and thus avoid the occurrence of such E are the car-wheels.

accidents as are hereinbefore referred to.

My invention consists in the general construction of my improved safety-apparatus; and it also consists in details of construction and combinations of parts, all as hereinafter set forth and pointed out in the claims.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a broken longitudinal sectional View taken at the line 1 on Fig. 2, viewed in the direction of the arrow and representing an inclined section of a street-railway track provided with the supplemental toothed track and mounted by a car equipped with my improved safetyt apparatus; and Fig. 2 is a sec-' tion taken at the line 2 on Fig. 1 and viewed in the direction of the arrow.

A denotes an inclined section of the roadbed of a street-car line having the rails 13, B. Extending lengthwise along the rails, preferably along each at its inner side, is a toothed rail 0, the teeth '1 of which should be equidistant apart and are inclined to present their abutment-ends r in the direction up the incline.

D denotes the floor of'a street-car; and E, Between the wheels,

by preference, or elsewhere, if desired, is located my improved safety-attachment. It

comprises a rock-shaft q journaled in bearings 19,19, depending from the bottom of the car near its opposite sides and carrying, near its opposite ends cross-heads 0, from opposite ends of each of which extend the pivotal tongues or bars at and n through pivoted guide sockets m on the bearings p.

F is an operating lever fastened at its lower end to the rock-shaft q, preferably near its center, and extending thence upward through the floor to afford aconveniently accessible handle on the car,provided with a spring-dog attachment Z to engage the teeth'of a segmental rack 70, for holding the shaft in either position of the throw of the operating lever.

The normal positions of the tongues n and 'n',which are extended and withdrawn lengthwise in inclined directions by rocking the shaft q, are with bothwithdrawn from projecting far enough downward to extend into the plane of the teeth of the rails O,in which position they are retained when the operating lever is thrown to engage its dog with the central notch at of the segmental rack 10. In the ascent of the car up theincline illustrated at, say, one end of a tunnel, should the car be,- come uncontrollable or for any reason start to run back down the incline, its progress may be instantly checked, and it may be brought immediately to and held at a stand still by turning the shaft q to distend the tongues n longitudinally till they project into the plane of the teeth of the supplemental toothed tracks 0, which they then engage. The toothed supplemental tracks provided on the inclined section of the road-bed on which cars descend present the abutment-ends of their teeth also toward the upper end of the incline; so that while the car illustrated was descending into a tunnel at the opposite end from the incline shown in Fig. 1, up which it may be supposed to be traveling, as indicated by the arrow, the tongues it would have been the ones to be distended, by rocking the shaft q properly, to engage the teeth of the supplemental tracks 0.

As will be seen, a car equipped with my improved safety device, in' case it should, for any reason, get beyond the control of the brakes, when traveling on an incline, may be surely and easily checked and held against running down the incline, thus avoiding the possibility of any disastrous consequences such as have occurred owing to the lack of provision of some such safety device as that forming my improvement.

It may be suggested that the supplemental toothed tracks are not indispensable for use with my invention, inasmuch as the tongues 71 and 07. may be adapted to penetrate the road-bed to check the motion of the car. It may also be, under certain conditions, that onlyoneofthelongitudinallymovable tongues is required for afiording the advantages of my improved safety-apparatus Hence I do not limit my invention to the use of more than one such tongue.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. In combination with a car, a safety-apparatus comprising a rock-shaft journaled in bearings at opposite sides of the car, a lever for rocking the shaft, means for locking said lever at the ends of its throw, a tongue pivotally connected with the lever and a socket pivotally fastened below the tongue-pivot to extend from its pivotal point to one side of that of the tongue and afi'ording a self-adjusting guide through which the tongue projects incliningly to be extended and retracted 1ongitudinally, with relation to the road-bed, by operating said lever, substantially as described.

2. In combination with a'car, a safety-apparatus comprising a rock-shaft q journaled in bearings at opposite sides of the car and provided with an operating leverF equipped with a spring-dog device to engage a rack is on the car, cross-heads 0 on the shaft near its opposite ends, tongues n and 'n pivotally fastened on each cross-head near its opposite ends, and sockets m pivoted on said bearings and affording guides through which the tongues pass to be extended and retracted longitudinally with relation to the road-bed by rocking the shaft, substantially as described.

3. In combination with the inclined roadbed A having rails B, a supplemental toothed rail 0 extending lengthwise along said rails, and a car mounted on said rails 13 and provided with a safety-apparatus comprising a rock-shaft journaledin bearings at opposite sides of the car and provided with an operating lever, means for locking the lever at the ends of its throw, a cross-head on said shaft, tongues pivoted to the cross-head near its opposite ends and sockets, each pivotally fastened below a tongue-pivot to extend from its pivotal point to one side of that of said tongue, said sockets afiording self-adjusting guides through which the tongues project incliningly to be extended and retracted longitudinally, with relation to the road-bed, by operating said lever, substantially as described.

AUGUST FISCHER. In presence of- J. H. LEE, M. J. FROST. 

